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Local doctors give health insurance a run for its money.
When Dr. Michael Fine was physician operating officer at Hillside Family & Community Medicine in Pawtucket and Scituate, he encouraged patients who had lost their insurance to contribute whatever they could. (He once provided an artist and her husband six years of pri-mary care in exchange for six illustrations.) However, most patients were still uncomfortable with the idea, so Fine hatched a new plan for affordable healthcare. “We wanted to find a way where patients would own their healthcare and not feel that someone was doing them a favor,” says Fine.
In 2008, HealthAccessRI was born: the first statewide organization in the country to offer membership-based primary care to the uninsured. Clients choose a primary care doctor from among seventeen practices and forty-two physicians, pay an enrollment fee of $15 to $80 (each practice sets its own rate), a monthly fee of $25 to $30 and $5 to $10 per office visit. They must pay out of pocket for various other services such as specialty care, hospitalization, lab work and prescriptions, but HealthAccessRI has arranged for discounts from a number of those providers.
The innovative program has piqued nationwide interest. Fine hopes to grow its 500 members to 10,000 by December — the better to woo a major insurer to offer the catastrophic coverage of a low cost, high-deductible health insurance plan. If that happens, HealthAccessRI could be just what the doctor ordered. For information, visit healthaccessri.com —DENISE DOWLING
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